Page 271 - Religion in the Media Age Media, Religion & Culture

260 Public religious culture post-09/11/01

this is a moral, ethical, and religious question that must be answered in
other ways and contexts. But, because media are involved and mediation is
thought to be such an important part of the equation, there are some
things we can say, based on our explorations in this book.
First and foremost, there seem to be more commonalities than there are
differences among various religious biographies in the way they use media.
So, what we say of Evangelicals we are likely also to say of Catholics and
metaphysical seekers and liberal Protestants in these regards. Second, one
of the most consistent things we have found about the way people use
media in their religious and spiritual self-narratives is that they treat the
media as a resource in relation to other aspects and influences in their
lives. I quoted John Thompson earlier on this point. The people we’ve
heard from selectively integrate media into the warp and woof of their
lives. This was true, we saw, even of the households that thought of them-
selves as motivated by religious or spiritual values in their media
consumption. Third, it is clear that the decline in the authority of religious
institutions pervades what we have seen. The historic claims of church,
sect, doctrine, and history no longer hold the sway they once did. Instead,
they are part of the array of symbols, traditions, and values that people
bring together in their own way into narratives that make sense for them,
located as they are.
Fourth, perhaps the most powerful and consistent thing we’ve seen is
the nearly universal belief among our interviewees that it is they, them-
selves, who must be the final arbiter of belief and value in their own lives.
They do not wish to be seen to surrender to the media, or indeed to any
external authority, the right to make decisions for them. This is most
obvious as they talk about how to make decisions about media rules.
Behind rules is the sense that it makes a difference what kind of things they
and their children watch, listen to, and do. The values in those things are
important to our interviewees, and they want to make decisions about
what is right and proper. But, they do not look to others to make those
decisions for them. They must make them themselves. More tellingly,
perhaps, it is nearly universal among our interviews that children must be
brought to make those decisions for themselves, as well. Few of our
parents wanted to be seen to be restricting their older children’s viewing to
protect them from things they should not see (younger children were a
different matter). The appropriate way to think of media, if I can sum it up
simply, is as a cultural resource that is inevitable, even necessary, and that
it is up to us to make our own decisions about it.
Fifth, what I have said about relations between “religious” and
“secular” media and the potential for “crossing over” is also important
here. Many of our born-again interviewees lived on both maps. They
consumed both religious and secular material, and there is a sense in which
the secular is the definitive media context. As we observed in many of